MY first one was I was about 8 and swapped some action man bits for a Milbro Mk.IV Air Pistol, with a bent over nail as the barrel axis pin. It would fire the early fibre rawl plugs but not pellets. I sort of viewed it as a toy. I hate to say we used to fire it cocked with the over lever up - so it would slam down....i took it to bits one day and painted it silver.....and it never got reassembled.....still have most of it in a tin in the garage.
We used to roam around the terraced streets and railway lines and industrial estates in gangs of kids....a couple of the older lads had gat guns from the pet shop at the top of the road.....sometimes us little un's would get a shot.....nobody seemed to mind or ever called the police on us. There was a junk shop nearby that had airguns in the window, which we would stare at in awe. My mate had a crosman bb gun and we used to sit on the roof of his dads shed and happily plink at everything in range. One day he shot at an aerosol can which covered him and the gun in yellow paint. We just painted the whole gun black there and then....waited til it was sticky dry and kept on pumping and shooting. There were these mystical things called ballistic darts...but he shot them all one day when i wasn't there...I was gutted.
Fast forward another 4 or 5 years....I moved to the country at 9 years old.....and still shooting other peoples airguns......at 13, I saved up some dinner money and bought a battered Diana SP50, which fired about six inches low and the same to the right and learnt about hold over and windage. Eventually my parents got me a second hand Meteor with a telescopic sight - then i was shooting proper